The Draft in Hindsight, One.

There's precious little real news to report, outside of some more Rolen/ Tony crap, and I don't have any interest in rehashing that whole nasty business.  Otherwise, there don't appear to be any moves in the works, and I don't really foresee anything happening before the winter meetings.  And so, in that spirit, I thought we should start digging around in the past.  

Lately, there's been a lot of debate around here as to whether you trade your prospects or keep them, why you should or shouldn't bank on a guy, all that great conversation that only goes on in the offseason, between people who probably have a bit too much invested in the sport in question.  (Don't get me wrong and think for a second I'm judging anyone.  Hell, I spend several hours a week just trying to think of a conversation topic to write about.  So who has too much invested?)  This debate typically falls along these lines:  

Player development fan:  "You can't trade away these prospects, that's what got us into this mess in the first place!"  

Win now fan:  "This team is cheap!  They're wasting the prime years of our best player's career!"  

PDF:  "Our system can't handle any more trades.  We just have to be patient and wait for our guys to develop."  

WNF:  "You're way overrating our prospects.  These guys wouldn't even make the top 25 in other teams' systems."  

PDF:  "Our system is thin because we trade away all our prospects!  We've got the players, we just have to give them the chance to develop!"  

WNF:  "Other than Rasmus, none of these guys are any good!  This team needs to do a better job drafting.  You need to move them to get whatever you can, while other teams are still overvaluing them!"  

And so on.  

The thing about this is, both sides are right.  The Cards have hurt the system by moving guys, and their drafts have been atrocious.  We see an old, slow team on the field, and little help forthcoming.  So I thought it would be instructive to take a look at how the Cards came to be just where they are, in terms of the farm system.  So, I would like to take a look at the last few drafts.  I'm going to do the last three in depth only, as those are the ones that Luhnow has been in charge of.  (This also gives us a nice referendum to decide what kind of job he's really doing, since the organisation is busily placing most of it's eggs in his basket.)  I'll do it one at a time, as I think all three would be far too unwieldy for one post.  I'll start with Luhnow's first draft, that of 2005.  And so, without further ado...

First off, a little background on the previous two drafts.  The two drafts leading in to the overhaul of the scouting department are very interesting, to say the least.  In the 2003 draft, the Cardinals actually did a pretty nice job.  They selected Daric Barton in the first round, and, while he's proven a lot of skeptics right, who said he wouldn't be able to stick defensively anywhere but first, man can the kid hit.  He was part of the Mark Mulder deal, and made his ML debut this past season.  By all accounts, he should be a tremendous offensive player for quite a while.  The Cardinals also selected Anthony Reyes late, in the 16th round, and watched him blossom into a potential top of the rotation starter.  Not a bad sleeper pick.  (Now, all that's happened recently changes how we view Anthony, but it was still a great draft pick.)  What is really amazing about the 2003 draft, though, is the trio of HS pitchers they took in later rounds.  The Cardinals drafted Max Scherzer, Brett Sinkbeil, and Ian Kennedy in the draft that year.  Scherzer was in the 14th round, I believe, and the other two were in the 30s or higher, if I remember correctly.  The Cardinals did not sign any of them, and all three went on to be first round picks in 2006.  Chew on that for a moment.  The Cardinals chose three pitchers, all in one draft, that ended up being first round talents after three years in college.  Obviously, somebody in the scouting department was doing their job; and someone on the financial side made some poor decisions.  Sinkbeil is now the #2 prospect in the Marlins organisation, Scherzer is a top ten prospect for the DBacks, and Kennedy made his major league debut last season for the Yankees.  You can say he's Reyes with less stuff, but he still managed to get to the big leagues in less than a year and a half.  Just the thought of all three of those pitchers, drafted by the same team, and all allowed to walk, just absolutely drives me nuts.  

2004, of course, will live forever in draft infamy; at least, among Cardinal fans.  You probably know the story by now:  Luhnow had just taken over the scouting department, the team didn't even have any crosscheckers, and the assistant GM was running the show.  (yes, the same asst. GM who was just named the General Manager.  Kind of black mark for old Mo.)  The Cards were picking at 19, and they had their eye on Josh Fields, a collegiate third baseman.  The White Sox took Fields at 18, surprising the Cardinals.  Left scrambling, Mozeliak and crew asked Luhnow's group for a pick.  They crunched a few numbers, checked a couple of scouting reports, and came back with their choice:  Philip Hughes.  Now, this is where the story gets a little confused, as there seems to be a lot of question as to who, exactly, passed down the next edict.  Said edict was to take a college player, a pitcher.  Again, reports vary as to who nixed the Hughes pick in favor of a collegian, but, regardless of who made the call, there it was.  The organisation didn't want to pick Hughes because he was a high schooler, and they wanted a safer pick.  Some more discussion ensued, this time with much less of a consensus being reached, and Chris Lambert was taken.  Chris Lambert's contribution to the organisation ultimately amounted to four months of Mike Maroth.  Again, take a second.  Instead of six years of Philip Hughes, the Cardianls ended up with four months of Mike Maroth.  That hurts.  Just to rub a bit more salt in the wound, here are a few other players who were still on the board when Lambert was taken:  

Glen Perkins, LHP, taken by Minnesota
Blake DeWitt, 3b, taken by Dodgers
Eric Hurley, RHP, taken by Rangers
Gio Gonzalez, LHP, taken by White Sox
Tyler Lumsden, LHP, taken by White Sox
Huston Street, RHP, taken by Oakland
Reid Brignac, SS, taken by Tampa Bay
Yovani Gallardo, RHP, taken by Milwaukee
Seth Smith, OF, taken by Colorado
Billy Buckner, RHP, taken by Kansas City
Curtis Thigpen, C, taken by Toronto

All of those players were taken after Lambert, and before the Cardinals' second pick; all of the players above are top ten prospects in their respective systems, or have graduated from prospect status.  The Cards' second pick was a first baseman from Miami Ohio college, Mike Ferris.  Ferris came out of nowhere his junior year to have one monster season.  There's a reason you haven't heard of him.  A couple of players who were still on the board, and reasonably close to where Ferris was picked:

Hunter Pence, OF, taken by Houston
Dustin Pedroia, SS, taken by Boston (moved to 2nd)
Kurt Suzuki, C, taken by Oakland.  
Gaby Hernandez, RHP, taken by the Metropolitans
Wade Davis, RHP, taken by Tampa Bay

I only included guys relatively close to where Ferris was picked, you can't say so and so was available when he wasn't picked until the 9th round; it's not fair to criticise a team for not reaching that badly.  

Out of the whole 2004 draft, there are only two players still around who look to contribute to the team in any meaningful way.  Mark Worrell, a sidearming righty reliever, could compete for a spot in middle relief as early as next season, (although they don't seem too high on him) and Jarret Hoffpauir.  Hoffpauir's name has been thrown around here a lot lately, you probably all know who he is.  That's really it.  Two players.  It will go down as one of the worst drafts ever, unless something truly unforeseen happens.  

So that was the situation when Luhnow officially took over the draft in 2005.  Over the previous year, he had rebuilt the scouting department, and he had a great situation to try out his ideas.  The Cards had a windfall in 05, after losing Mike Matheny, Edgar Renteria, Steve Kline, and Tony Womack to free agency.  The Cardinals had six picks in the first one hundred, with two first rounders, two supplemntal firsts, and two second round picks.  

Luhnow's first draft was an absolute doozy.  The Cardinals identified early on what they were looking for.  They wanted a left handed hitting, high school outfielder, preferable one who played center.  They pegged Jay Bruce, a high schooler from Texas, as the guy that they wanted.  He had all the tools they were looking for, and he was an absolute masher.  Unfortunately, the Cards first pick wasn't util 28, (the compensatory pick for Renteria, by the way) and they knew there was no way Bruce would last all the way there.  So, using his profile as a stepping off point, they searched and identified a similar player that they liked.  With their first pick of the 2005 draft, 28th overall, the St. Louis Cardinals picked Colby Rasmus.  Rasmus was very similar to Bruce, a high school outfielder from Alabama.  He had broken Bo Jackson's state high school home run record, played center field, and had very good speed.  He was a little rangier than Bruce, with a slightly leaner build.  A little smaller, maybe, but with a good frame all the same.  

Of course, with even just a couple of years' hindsight on this one, this was an absolutely stellar pick.  Of all the outfielders taken in that first round, (and there were some major ones) Rasmus, according to quite a few scouts, could end up being the best of them all.  He already looks as if he has the fewest real question marks in his game.  Cameron Maybin, the first outfielder taken, at 6th overall, and Justin Upton, first overall, taken as a shortstop but moved to the outfield, both have significant questions about their ability to hit for a high average, and their respective plate disciplines.  Bruce himself doesn't look as if he's going to be able to stay in center field.  He's slowed down considerable already, and as he continues to fill out, he probably won't have the range.  He'll make a fine right fielder, but corner spots just aren't as valuable as center.  Andrew McCutcheon, taken by the Pirates, has great range and is an outstanding hitter, but his arm is just adequate for center, and there are some questions about just how much power he'll end up hitting for.  With Rasmus, though, he appears to be capable of doing pretty much everything, and at a very high level.  

With their second pick, at #30, the Cards took Tyler Greene.  A shortstop out of Georgia Tech, Greene is what you call a "swing for the fences" kind of pick.  Although he was a collegian, he was very much a high risk, high reward sort of player.  Tremendous speed, (he's succeeded in something like 94% of his SB attempts as a pro) very good raw power, Greene is an absolute specimen of athletic prowess.  Unfortunately, things haven't worked out for Tyler.  He hasn't been able to adjust and hit for an average as a pro, which is somewhat surprising in light of the fact that he actually hit better in the Cape Cod League, (wood bats) and with Team USA, (ditto) than he did for the most part with metal in college.  Greene has shown that tantalizing speed/ power combo in pro ball, but hasn't made enough contact to take advantage of it.  

Now, just those first two picks say a lot about the direction the Cardinals took in the 2005 draft.  As has been postulated, here and elsewhere, those extra picks allowed the team to be aggressive with their early picks, rather than trying to hedge their bets with safer choices.  They had enough chances to get it right that they could go for the big payoff.  Both Rasmus and Greene were extremely high upside players with a good chance of flaming out; Greene due to his questionable track record, and Rasmus simply because prep picks are riskier by their nature; you have to project much more with a high school kid.  Greene hasn't worked out great, but it was still a good pick, I think.  If Greene could ever put it together, he could be, not just an everyday player, but a perennial allstar.  He's hurt now, and his chances of making it appear to be pretty slim.  But it was still a gutsy choice, taking the chance to acquire a potential cornerstone player.  

In the supplemental first, the Cardinals had two picks.  They used the first of them on Mark McCormick.  A right handed starter from Baylor, McCormick has a fastball in the upper 90s, and very little idea of where it's going.  I remember watching McCormick pitching in the CWS that year, and just absolutely flipping out over how good the kid's stuff was.  Unfortunately, things haven't fallen well for McCormick, either, and after seeing more of him, I don't think things are going to.  He seems to have a repertoire similar to Kerry Wood or A.J. Burnett, but also the same delivery flaw.  All of them seem to have poor timing in their motions, leading to them dragging their arms, or flying open with the front shoulder, etc.  All three seem to throw against their bodies, and all have had health problems to match.  McCormick had shoulder surgery last year, and has struggled coming back from it.  It's a shame, as he consistently puts up extremely low BAA numbers; his fastball alone is almost unhittable.  His chance of contributing anything at the major league level, though, looks to be pretty slim.  

With their next pick, at 46, I believe, the Cards took Tyler Herron, a right handed high school pitcher.  Herron was a shortstop for most of his high school playing career, only taking to the mound during his junior year.  He's been all the more impressive for that, moving steadily up through the minor league ranks.  He put up some very nice numbers at Quad Cities this year, with a 3.74 ERA, a 130/26 K/BB ratio, and 123 hits in 137 innings.  There's a litle debate about the overall quality of Herron's stuff; some reports have his fastball in the low 90s with good movement, others have it with good velocity but a little too straight.  His curve is a plus, and his changeup has developed into a pretty solid pitch.  What his ultimate ceiling is is still a little vague, as he's a long way from the majors, but the returns are more than encouraging so far.  

After Herron, things become a little diceier.  With the next two picks, both in the second round, the Cardinals took Josh Wilson, a high school righty, and Nick Webber, a college closer.  At the time, both were seen as maybe slight overdrafts, and two years on, it looks like that might be a pretty accurate assessment.  What's interesting here is that both pitchers were drafted primarily on the strength of their sinkers.  Webber dominated with just the one pitch in college, and Wilson had better command of his two seamer than any other pitcher in the draft.  However, there were significant questions about both of them otherwise.  Wilson is very small, (about 5'11) and had questionable mechanics.  Webber had virtually no complementary pitches.  Wilson ended up with shoulder surgery; at the moment, the team has no idea what they have with him.  The Cards tried to make Webber into a starter, both to aid in his development and to possibly increase his overall value.  He didn't take too very well to the conversion, and hasn't been effective even after moving back to the pen.  Unfortunately for the Cardinals, it appears now that they placed too much of an emphasis on each of these pitchers throwing one pitch, and not enough emphasis on the overall package.  

The 05 draft also produced a few other potential impact players.  Bryan Anderson, taken in the fourth round out of a California high school, is the top catching prospect in the Cards' system.  He compares pretty favorably to some of the best catchers in the game right now, according to many of the peak translation systems.  Anderson, whatever you may think about the Yadi vs. Bryan debate, projects to be an above average major league hitter.  The power that some had projected hasn't really shown up yet, but even without it, he's a big time prospect.  Also, remember that for all the talk of how young Rasmus was for AA, Anderson is a full five months younger, and played at the same level.  

Daryl Jones was taken in the 3rd round out of a Texas high school.  He's still an untamed bag of tools at this point, and he needs to start producing if he's going to make it.  His ceiling and athleticism, though, remain sky high, and his impact potential is tremendous.  

Mitchell Boggs, a right handed pitcher, was taken in the fifth round, from the University of Georgia.  He had an up and down college career, transferring back and forth between schools, playing baseball and football alternately.  One of the Cards' scouts saw something, though, and Boggs has taken off, big time.  He's probably the closest to being major league ready of any of the Cards' good pitching prospects, and there's at least some chance that we could see him at the big league level at some point in 2008.  

Both Nick Stavinoha, OF, and Trey Hearne, RHP, were taken in the later rounds of the 05 draft.  Neither one of them looks to be an impact big leaguer, but both could end up being bit players at some point.  Stavinoha is a John Gall type, and Hearne is pretty much the same player as Brad Thompson, without the animosity toward small canines.  Again, neither is going to be a big contributor, but the fact that each looks as if they could get a chance at even a cup of coffee has some value.  

Last, but certainly not least, is super sleeper Jaime Garcia.  He was taken in the 22nd round, nominally out of high school, although he had been drafted by the Orioles the year before, and had spent a season playing Mexican League ball.  Garcia is the consensus top pitching prospect in the system, a lefty with two plus pitches, a chance for a third, and top notch control.  He made it to AA in his second full season, before being shut down with elbow issues.  Not bad for a 22nd round afterthought.  If Garcia's elbow is healthy, there's a chance we could see him here this season at some point also.  

Overall, that's two, possibly three, potential star players, (Rasmus, Anderson, Garcia) two potential middle rotation guys, (Boggs and Herron) a few bench/ bit players (Stavy and Hearne) and some project players with pretty good potential payoffs.  For the first draft by a new director, you would have to call it a wild success.  So far, it's the most successful draft of Luhnow's tenure, although both of the drafts since are also pretty promising.

What we can also see here are some definite tendencies.  There is a preference for college players, at least in terms of quantity, (which is pretty common with the stathead types; it's tough to do stat analyses with a limited amount of stats) a preference for groundball pitchers, (in line with the rest of the organisation) and a willingness to take some risks, especially if there are enough picks in place to act as a buffer if some of the picks don't pan out.  Luhnow and team did a nice job of identifying some intriguing players in rounds after the first couple.  They had better success, overall, with risky high school picks than risky college picks.  Also, quite significantly, we can see a willingness to overdraft in order to get a player that they believe in.  Particularly when a player fits a certain profile, there was a tendence to overreach, rather than take a chance on a particular player not being there later.  These are the themes that we can see running throughout the picks Luhnow has made in subsequent drafts, both for good and for ill.  

Overall, Luhnow's first draft was excellent.  When you compare it to the 2004 draft, which is one of the biggest reason the Cardinals have virtually no young players ready to step up right now, it's absolutely impossible to quantify just how much better it really was.  It was an auspicious start to the process of turning around one of the worst farm systems in baseball, and, for the most part, it's carried forward.  

I'll do the 2006 draft next time; I'll also try to shorten it up a little bit.  I think it's important that we understand how things got to where they are, if we're to have any sort of intelligent opinion as to the proper way to move forward.  I'll see you all later.